Do Not Curse The Darkness
by PirateOwl
Summary: "We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light a candle that can guide us through the darkness to a safe and sure future." - JFK A series of oneshots and drabbles, mostly Captain Swan, set during the Dark Swan arc.
1. Lend A Hand

"Hook," the Dark Swan said, almost cheerfully.

He sighed and turned around to face the woman who had appeared behind him on his way back to his ship. "What do you want Dark One?"

She stared at him for a moment. "I want to apologize."

"For what? Replacing the real Emma? For trying to manipulate me? For stealing the sword? Or for something else I don't even know about yet?"

The Dark Swan nodded. "For the sword, Killian. I needed your help but you wouldn't help me." She said it as though she were legitimately hurt by that.

"I will never willingly help you Dark One. I thought you said you would let me go."

"I also wanted to pay you back for it." The Dark Swan smiled and stepped close. She reached for his hand but he drew back. "I can give you back your other hand. No strings attached."

"I tried that before, remember. It didn't work out and I paid a high price to get rid of it again. What makes you think I would make the same mistake again?"

The Dark Swan tilted her head and tried to take his hand again. He didn't pull back this time, but he made no move to hold her hand. "But that was your enemy. That was Rumplestiltskin. This is me, Killian, and I'm promising you, no curses, no strings attached."

"It's still my enemy making the offer. It's the Dark One, not Emma."

For just a second, he thought saw a flicker of honest sadness in her eyes, but it vanished as quickly.

"Last time you promised me something Dark One you swore that all you need was my trust while you stole the sword. You want things to change between us? Stop lying. Tell me what you want."

"I didn't lie when I said I wanted your trust."

He pulled his hand out of her grasp.

"Leave me alone Dark One."

"I just know how hard you have worked to be more than Captain Hook." She stepped closer to him. He had to step back so she wouldn't be pressed against him. "So let me help you."

"I don't want anything from you."

"I know it bothers you," she said, reaching for his hand again. Again, he pulled back. "I how much you want to be whole again."

He looked away, unconsciously looking down at his hook for a second, his jaw clenching. "Of course it does," he admitted. He looked up sharply, meeting her gaze without flinching. "But it doesn't bother Emma." He turned and started walking away.

"Do you believe that?" the Dark Swan asked. "Wouldn't I know better than you about that?"

He paused for a second. "I believe that," he said simply, then kept walking without ever looking back.

The Dark Swan stood alone in the middle of the road, watching Killian disappear down the street. She waved a hand and vanished into the darkness.


	2. Time To Let Go

Arthur holds the dagger tightly. "Perfect timing, usurper," he says to Killian. "Dark One, he has tricked my sword into accepting him and as long as it belongs to this usurper it can never truly be mine. Take his heart and crush it."

"No!" Emma exclaims. "Please. I'm begging you. I can get you the sword some other way. Please anything but this."

"He should have thought of that before he tried to steal the sword that is mine my right. Kill him, Dark One."

She plunges her hand into his chest. The look of torment in her eyes is far more painful to Killian than her hand clasped around his heart. She pulls it free, holding it carefully in her hand.

"Please don't make me do this," she pleads.

"At least let me say goodbye," Killian says. "If there is any piece of honor or compassion left in you, please, let me say goodbye."

"Very well. Make it quick."

"I don't know what to say," he says, taking her hand, the one not holding his heart. "I… There are things I need to say to Emma, to the real Emma. I guess I'll just say them to you and hope she can remember when she is ready to hear it." He draws her closer, trying desperately to draw strength from someone he isn't sure is there. "I'm not afraid to die, Emma, never have been really, but I'm terrified that this will push you further into the darkness. Please don't let it. Remember that anything you are ordered to do with the dagger isn't you."

"Oh I know who is responsible," she says, cold fury in her tone. "He'll pay."

"No," Killian says softly. "Don't make my mistakes. Don't waste your life on revenge. You still have your family and it may not feel like it now but you have a life worth living. Fight for that. Vengeance doesn't bring back the dead so fight for the living." He takes a deep breath. "I love you. I have for a long time. I would have died to bring you back and counted it _well_ worth the sacrifice. Don't let the darkness use me to keep you enslaved."

"I think that's enough of a goodbye," Arthur says. "Kill him."

"Please, no!" Emma says, half sobbing. "I'm sorry," she adds to Killian.

"You'll be alright, Love," he says softly, steeling himself. He keeps his eyes locked on her face.

Agony flashes through him but he refuses to cry out, refuses to haunt her with that. His hand tightens on hers and his jaw tenses but he makes no sound. Suddenly her lips are pressed against his, soft and desperate, salt tears mixed with cinnamon on her tongue. It adds the desperate ache of wishing to the sharp pain of her hand crushing his heart between them.

He doesn't feel the magic building, or perhaps he is too distracted to notice until the flash of warmth and light rolls out from him and Emma. The pain from his heart immediately stops. Emma, real Emma, _his_ Emma, starts to laugh but hasn't stopped sobbing either. She presses his heart back into his chest, a sudden sharp pain that he is far too happy to care about.

Emma's eyes fall on Arthur, his hands still holding the dagger that no longer bears her name. She turns away from Killian, snatching the dagger and pressing it against Arthur's throat in one fluid motion. Suddenly Killian's hand is there over hers, not controlling the knife, just warm and alive, steadying her shaking hands.

"It's time to let go of the darkness, Love," he says gently.

She looks back at Killian then again at Arthur and at her violently shaking hand holding the dagger to his throat. She shudders and lets the dagger fall through suddenly limp fingers. It clatters to the ground and she scrambles backwards away from it before sinking to the ground.

Arthur saw the fury on Emma's face and sees the look in Killian's eyes as well, the eyes of a man who would gladly kill Arthur himself and only stopped Emma for her own sake. He wisely decides that, today at least, discretion is the better part of valor and he runs.

Killian kneels beside Emma, pulling her to him in a gentle hug. Light enough she doesn't feel trapped, firmly enough so she feels safe. She sinks against him gratefully, her face buried against his shoulder, her body racked with sobs.

"It's alright now," he tells her.

"But I almost…"

"Don't torture yourself with that, Love. What matters is that you didn't. You gave up the darkness to save my life." He reaches back and starts gently taking the bobby pins out of her bun, careful not to snag her hair.

"I almost didn't."

"But you did. You did what no other Dark One has ever done. You chose True Love over power."

"I couldn't let you be the price of that power. But I hurt you anyway," she says, sounding utterly lost and broken. Her golden hair falls free from the bun she had worn as the Dark One. "I didn't mean to but I did and…"

"I don't care," Killian says gently. "What happened before, what the Dark One did, I don't care about any of that. You're _you_ , and you're here with me." He flashes her a positively joyful smile, his joy tempered only by her sorrow, and she can see his honesty written on his face.

She kisses him and he wraps his arms more tightly around her. Here in his embrace, for the first time in months, she feels wanted, feels loved, feels home.


	3. Fear of the Dark

'You aren't afraid of me."

Killian spun to face the Dark Swan. "You have to stop doing that." He sounds more tired than angry.

"Dropping by to see you or appearing directly behind you?" she asks in a teasing voice.

He sighs. "Both." _Stop visiting because it is too painful to see_ her _face but to know it isn't real. Stop visiting because each time you do I want to forget why I keep refusing you, to lose myself in you, to drown out the memories because they hurt too much to bear. Stop visiting because I can't stand being haunted like this. Don't ever stop visiting because I don't think I could survive never seeing her face again._

"You don't really mean that," she says, stepping closer and trying to take his hand.

"I do mean that." He turns away from her and keeps walking.

"There. You are the only one in this town who would dare turn their back and dismiss the Dark One."

He wheels back to face her. "What do you want from me Dark One?" he demands, anger and despair warring in his voice. "You've already taken _everything_."

She frowns, tilting her head as she studies him. "Is that why?" She sounds almost sad and it takes all his strength not to reach out for her, not to comfort her. "Because you don't care if you live or die? Because you may not see it now, but you could have a good life if you would just let me in. You could have everything you want."

 _All I want is Emma._ "That's not what this is about," he says aloud. "You wouldn't understand."

"Come on Killian," she says, sliding up against him. Again he steps aside. "You and I, we understand each other. I thought we established that a long time ago."

"Aye. We established a lot of things," Killian says evenly. "Not the least of which is that you were the savior, not the Dark One. And that you and I could be a part of something or we could do what we do best and be alone."

"I'm not the one keeping people away from me."

"You are by treating people like pawns."

"You aren't a pawn," she says, her smile deliberately seductive. "You could be a king."

"I hate kings," Killian says.

"You still haven't told me why you aren't afraid like the rest of them." She presses herself against him.

He steps away again, another step in a dance of which he is quickly tiring. _Of course I'm afraid. I'm afraid I might not always have the strength to keep stepping away._

"Because you want me for something. I'm safe as long as you still need me for that," he says coldly. He believes that is true, not the only reason, but the only one he is sure about.

* * *

"Are you afraid of her?" Henry asks. "My mom," he clarifies unnecessarily. He has taken to lurking around the Jolly Roger and Killian doesn't mind the company. Regina had told Killian what the Dark One did to Violet, how she broke Henry's heart.

"No," Killian admits. _Of course I am. I'm afraid she will burn the town to the ground to get whatever it is she wants and that you and I and perhaps a few others will be left standing in the ashes. Of course I'm not. It isn't your mother doing any of this, not really._ "Are you?"

"No. Not for me anyway. That's not how the Dark One works. Historically it is much more likely to turn her love for me against everyone else than it is to make her hurt me. Or at least if she's anything like Rumplestiltskin as the Dark One." He pats his satchel containing the storybook. "That's my reason. What's yours?"

"Because we're getting her back. I'm not giving up on her and I'm not letting anyone give up on her. She's not gone." It's true, he believes it's true, but he knows it isn't the whole of it. It's more complicated than he can put in to words.

* * *

"Were you ever afraid of the Crocodile?" Killian asks Belle. Everyone asking him has made him curious. But he knows Belle well enough to know the answer already.

"No. There is a difference between not trusting someone and being afraid of them. He lost my trust but even after that, when he came back to Storybrooke, I was never afraid he would hurt me. What I was afraid of was that my love would cloud my better judgment, like it had before."

"Aye. It's a hard balance to find."

"It is," Belle agrees. "Love without trust is the hardest thing to bear."

Even so it's a relief that someone else understands, that someone else knows the steps of his dance.

* * *

Rumplestiltskin never asks if Killian is afraid of Emma, or of the Dark One. He knows better. Even when it was not possessing the woman he loves, Killian held far more hatred than fear of the Dark One. And he knows recent circumstances have done nothing to change that.

* * *

Snow doesn't ask because he might ask her back and she doesn't want to have to admit that she is. She has gone down that road before and isn't willing to admit that once again she is afraid of her daughter. But as long as she doesn't say it out loud maybe it isn't real and she can still have hope. Even so, she hold Neal a little closer and hurries whenever she is out on quiet streets.

* * *

"We'll get her back," David says once. He doesn't ask because he knows the answer. He has a scar from an arrow to his shoulder, a reminder of his unwillingness to be afraid of Snow. _Perhaps that's what Emma needs_ a traitor part of him thinks. _If he takes an arrow to the shoulder, maybe Emma will remember who she is, how much she loves him._ But he is afraid for his friend, afraid that Emma will shoot something stronger than an arrow. And he is afraid for Emma if that happens.

"Aye. We will," Killian agrees. They don't talk about it beyond that. There is no need. Their own fears don't matter because they are both in this for Emma.

* * *

"Why aren't you afraid of her?" Regina asks later. "Everyone else is, even people who care about Emma. So why aren't you?"

"Why _would_ I be afraid of her?" Killian asks in return, his tone almost derisive.

"Because she could rip your heart out and crush it as soon as look at you," Regina points out reasonably."

"That feels a bit redundant at this point. And Emma is still there, buried deep, but there. And as long has she is, she won't let the Dark Swan hurt me."

"And if she isn't, you don't care what happens to you?" Regina asks. He doesn't think she is in any position to throw stones for how people cope with losing people they love, but neither is he so he lets it go.

"If she's not, I'm far more afraid of what happens to her. And I know that sooner or later the darkness will try to make her hurt someone she loves. I believe in Emma, that she is strong enough to fight it, but if she's not… well…" he gives a tense smile.

"And as long as it is you, the darkness won't have a chance to make her hurt Henry," Regina says softly. "I mean something that won't heal like a broken heart," she amends.

"Aye," Killian agrees. "That's another part of it. And it's not just Henry I'm protecting. Emma can come back from the darkness, even without me, but if she hurts Henry, I think we both know she's not coming back from that."

"No, she wouldn't," Regina agrees.

"And if I have to be the Dark Swan's go-to pirate every time she wants to talk to any of us, that is a small price to pay to keep her and Henry both safe."

"As much as I appreciate you taking the risk instead of Henry, be careful Captain. I don't think she would come back from killing you either."

"I'm willing to give my life to save her. That's why I'm not afraid. I've already counted the cost and am more than willing to pay it." And that's it he realizes, the full truth he couldn't quite explain before. "But you don't have to worry about me being careless. I'm willing to die for her, but I'd far prefer living for her."

* * *

The Dark Swan doesn't stop visiting him. He still can't figure out whether that is some part of the real Emma missing him or whether she is here to torment him. He is tired of the dance, of stepping aside every time she comes near but he does it because it is what _she_ needs and he is afraid of what happens, to her, to him, if he surrenders to the darkness.


End file.
